who killed poor alice?
by Lily Maxwell The Dark Angel
Summary: On the day Gilbert Nightray was going to take his life, he met a boy. And among blood and tears, he held his hand. // Alternative Universe. Character Death. Rabbit abuse? // Gilbert/Oz


**w****ho killed poor alice ?**

l i l y m.

* * *

On the day Gilbert Nightray was going to take his life, he met a boy.

Dangling his feet off in the air, sitting on the bridge's rail. White jacket bright against the grey scenario, golden hair moist with the drizzle. Umbrellas with colors like the rainbow walked left, right, and Gilbert's black trench coat flowed with the wind. And the wind was vicious, the raindrops felt like needles. But the boy was unfazed, unmoving, except for those two feet, playing back and forth.

Gilbert half expected him to suddenly jump off the bridge, arms high to the skies as he fell to the dark waters below. He felt morbid, then. The other half expected him to turn around, say his name, and that he was expecting him. Something about the boy screamed death to Gilbert – but maybe that was because Death was what he had in mind.

When he walked up to the boy's side, hands gripping the railing a bit too tight, he said nothing. He didn't even move. Gilbert almost forgot to breathe.

He didn't jump off on that day. Neither did the boy.

On another day, Gilbert Nightray went out in the rain, and he didn't mean to take his life.

He learned the boy's name was Oz.

And he felt like meeting him again.

_**;**_

Oz laughed easily. He initiated small talk, about his life and the love for his sister. Gilbert mentioned he had a brother, but they didn't talk much. He didn't really want to talk about his brother – Oz didn't pressure. He just laughed like sunshine.

Gilbert felt inappropriate for befriending a young boy. He usually felt old with an unaccomplished life. He was only twenty four. He never really talked much, preferring to smoke his lungs away. What was so miserable about your life, Gilbert Nightray?

Gilbert envied Oz and his happiness and his laugh and his life. He felt inappropriate for befriending the young boy.

But he always walked towards him.

Oz liked touching his hand.

_**;**_

Oz asked where he lived, and requested to visit him. He didn't know Gilbert never wanted to go back home. He didn't know a lot about Gilbert – mostly because Gilbert never told him much. He told him his name was Gilbert, and he knew his name was Oz, and that was how their meetings went.

But Gilbert found out Oz liked fantasy books about princesses and knights and bravery. He found out Oz had a sister and that she was beautiful. That he liked ice cream, and he liked humming songs, and that he never really shut up. Gilbert never really used to hang out with talkative people. He was not talkative. He was not a people person.

When Gilbert closed the door to his house, he wished Oz was there. Because if Oz was there, if he wanted to be with him, then maybe, just maybe he would never go outside again.

But he drank his tea alone.

_**;**_

Oz sometimes wore a red tie. A red tie that contrasted with the white of his shirt and the paleness of his skin. It looked remarkably nice with the shade of his hair, however. Like a remarkable piece an author chose to always make his protagonist stand out in a crowd, white and bright, red tie flowing to his side as he walked.

Gilbert was all blacks and blues. Oz seemed to find his eyes fascinating, but that was probably because he couldn't see how green his own eyes were. With a hint of yellow. Gilbert took close notice one day, when Oz was so up close, breath touching Gilbert's nose, saying something about Gilbert's hair and brushing some of his bangs away from his face.

And then he was around the corner, sticking out his tongue and laughing that laugh of his, shouting that he had to go, and that they would meet tomorrow, that Gilbert had to be there, and something or other that Gilbert couldn't make out because he was too distant already. He never really shut up, that one. Gilbert never replied. He wanted to.

Gilbert liked that red tie of his. And he didn't even like red.

_**;**_

"_Why did she have to die? Why?"_

_**;**_

There were only tears and sobs and undistinguishable babbles. Gilbert heard his own heartbeat, loud against his ears, more than Oz's confused words. He wanted to take Oz away from the crowd, away from the bridge, away from everything and everyone, but God, why _couldn't he move?_

The red against Oz's white shirt was not that of his tie. And it was on his hands and face and it got mixed with tears. And that red, that blood, it froze Gilbert completely, who, among the voices of the people around them and Oz's cries, could hear another voice in his head, a voice he tried to forget.

_She bored me_, it said. And along with the voice came a sinister smile, and the floor was so red, and why was her dress stained, _whywhywhy._

Why were Oz's eyes so lost and hurt and confused? Gilbert wanted to take him away from the bridge, because the bridge looked so tempting now, for both of them, it was scaring him more than anything else had, more than that sinister laugh and smile.

People were talking, and he was sure someone was on their way, an ambulance, the police, Oz's family, Oz's sister, _Gilbert's brother._

Gilbert ran, and he held onto Oz's hand, and he didn't stop for a long time. By the time they stopped, he shut his door with a _bang_, held Oz close to his chest, and both fell to the floor. Oz had stopped crying by then, he had stopped talking, and he had stopped moving. Gilbert rocked him back and forth, whispering comfort into his hair, petting and caressing him, and in the end, he didn't know who he was comforting.

_**;**_

It was a rabbit. Oz had choked it, killed it, gripped it with all his force. He didn't know what he was doing. He didn't know what possessed him to do it. His voice was low as he spoke about what happened, after both of them had spent a long time just sitting on that floor.

He said its name was Alice, and that she was now dead. What did he do? What was he going to do?

Gilbert would not let him jump off that bridge. He just wouldn't.

But Oz looked around him, and for the first time he found himself in Gilbert's home, and found that it was awfully cold.

And for the first time, he noticed a picture hanging on the wall, with two little boys, and one of them had odd-colored eyes.

He fainted.

If the brave hero was such a fragile, broken boy, what was Gilbert Nightray going to do with himself?

His own pieces were scattered all over the floor, how was he going to put somebody else's pieces into place? How could _he_, the child who never fit anywhere, help someone?

He didn't faint.

_**;**_

When Oz woke up, he was in a white room, with white sheets, and no red tie to mark him as the hero. Gilbert was afraid that that role would be rejected from him.

When Oz looked up at him, he started crying. Gilbert felt inappropriate and out of place. He was afraid that the moment Oz's parents opened that door and walked in, he would be kicked out. Of the room, of his life. But no one came in. And between sobs, Oz did what he always did – he started talking.

He had a sister. A beautiful sister. And she was dead, stabbed, her blood all over the floor of Vincent Nightray, who had a brother, who was _Gilbert's brother_, and she was so sweet too.

"Did you know?"

Gilbert stared at him. He didn't know what say, what to do, what to feel. Oz looked up at him, his eyes a painful green, without that yellow glint.

"Did you know?"

And Gilbert…

Gilbert was all tears, kneeling on the floor, clinging to the bedsheets, a mess, a beautiful disaster. And he begged for a forgiveness he knew he wouldn't get, he pled for Oz to understand he had no idea, and he swore he would have done something, anything if he could, and his throat hurt because he hadn't used his voice like that before.

When the nurse came, she meant to take Gilbert outside, she meant to calm him down, but Oz – Oz held his hand. And Oz sat up, he buried his face on Gilbert's shirt, and he didn't let go. The nurse left. They stayed.

There wasn't a single red item in the white, white room. There were Oz and Gilbert, and they slept a soundless sleep, never letting go. In their dreams, there was no blood or death. Gilbert hadn't come home to find his brother had murdered his girlfriend, and Oz hadn't lost the only family he had.

There were umbrellas with colors like the rainbow, and sunshine and raindrops. And the bridge, it was far, far away.

And that was all that mattered.


End file.
